Women's Empowerment

Overview

Gender inequality remains a major development challenge in Papua New Guinea. Violence against women is remains unacceptably high; PNG’s systems of family and community relationships often exclude women from leadership and decision making roles. In terms of economic status, the 2011 PNG Country Gender Assessment reports “Men are almost twice as likely as women, however, to hold a ―wage job in the formal sector (40% of men vs 24% nationally) Women in formal sector jobs in PNG report average net monthly pay that is less than half that reported by men (682.17 kina vs. 1404.12 kina for men, based on answers from 2,381 respondents nationwide).

Our Goals

UNDP’s support to PNG is aligned to the National Policy on Women Equality and Women Empowerment 2011-15. UNDP PNG contributes to the overall goal of the Government of Papua New Guinea, i.e. by 2015 By 2015, women, men, boys and girls have increased opportunities to access services, resources, rights and decision-making processes through equal participation and benefits from the economic, social and political development of PNG.
more

UNDP's support to empowerment of women

UNDP provided pre- elections support to women by working with the media to increase visibility, including support to the media to run success stories on potential women candidates, and profiling them using the Pacific Women in Politics (PACWIP) programme, which raised more awareness on women representation within the region. UNDP also developed campaign material to support women with limited access to financial resources.

Projects and Initiatives

UNDP’s Gender portfolio covers two major areas:1) Support to Women participation and representation in decision making at national and sub national levels and; 2) Support to initiatives addressing Gender Based Violence. more